Mickey Rourke was coming off of his big comeback with “The Wrestler.” He was getting nominated for awards all over the place, and guess who else was, too? That’s right, Robert Downey Jr. Downey was grabbing nominations for his hilarious (and often misunderstood) turn as Kirk Lazarus, the method actor who goes way over the line, turning himself into a walking caricature of a black Vietnam vet named Lincoln Osiris.
I’ve seen some recent young influencer types discover “Tropic Thunder” for the first time and try to label it as problematic, obviously missing the whole point of the satire on display. I have to imagine many of these young TikTok folk might lose their minds when you tell them that not only did audiences at the time totally embrace this comedic turn, even the stuck-up Academy nominated him for Best Supporting Actor for it.
According to the recent (and excellent) book “MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios,” it was this nomination that brought Mickey Rourke to “Iron Man 2.” Rourke was also on the awards circuit for “The Wrestler” and it was at one of these Oscar banquets where Downey convinced Rourke to sign up to be the villain in the next movie.
Now, it took a whole lot of negotiating on the Marvel side of things, especially when they lowballed Rourke on salary, but they got the deal done and the MCU got one of its most threatening and oddball villains out of it.